December 2010
21 posts
“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over...”
– Pat Conroy
notre sapin
Singing ‘shingle hells’ we all helped decorate the Christmas tree on my last chilly Sunday evening in France.
looking for the hunchback on a frosty morning
I awoke today, after yesterday’s 11cm dumping of snow, to an absolutely cloud-less beaming blue sky as far as the eye could see and knew instantly that it was the perfect day to do the final thing on my enormous To Do List that I started compiling and diligently completing since my March arrival- climb Notre Dame. Off I trotted through the snow but much to my horror the towers were closed...
bit out of place i'd say...
As soon as I finished French class I headed straight to the train station to catch an RER surburban train to Versailles to view renowned Japanese artist, Haruki Murakami’s, new sculpture exhibition within the palace. During the last few years the Palace has, rather controversially, held avant-garde modern art exhibitions during the winter months. Some of the famous ones has...
snowwwww
It snowed all day today, and not just the odd soft little snowflake, it was like flour through a seeve, thick and constant. This afternoon alone we got 11cm of snow, something that hasn’t happened in Paris since the 80s!
All these photos are the courtesy of others as I stayed nice and warm inside, viewing the snow from the comfort of the kitchen
did Papa Noel just hit on me?
After almost 6 months I finally got to see one of my favourite Frenchies Mathilde, and her hilarious family whom I stayed with all those months ago during my first week in Paris. This year Mathilde has studied for and (succesfully) passed her bac (final school exam) and now started a bachelor of Arts at the prestigious Sorbonne. Needless to say ,we had difficulty trying to find a time so meet up...
a castle in the snow
On Saturday I decided to go on a roadtrip, which means in France jumping on a direct train out of the city. Today we found ourselves heading towards the majestic Chateau de Fontainebleau. With got bargain 8 euro day tickets and after a little hiccup (yes, I mixed up the station and arrived at Gare d’Austerlitz rather than Gare de l’Est, fortunately all I had to do was cross the...
les deux magots
Anneliese and I decided to shelter from the cold winds of Paris one Friday morning so we ducked into the infamous Deux Magots, the renowned meeting spot of the world’s finest thinkers from Sartre and de Beauvoir, to Hemingway and even Picasso. Whilst you do pay an arm and a leg for a café or chocolat chaud at this St Germain des Près institution you can still today see reminents of,...
emu
Corinne came home last night and informed me that at Chez Picard, a French frozen food supermarket, she spotted ‘Australian ostrich’…..yes, apparently you can buy frozen pre-packaged emu in France. Hamburger anyone?
Only two weeks left in my magical adopted...
snow
It wasn’t even December yet when the snowflakes began to fall. I was caught off guard the first time as it wasn’t overly cold. I was walking home from the tram stop and initially was wondering what this gentle hail was. How odd, I thought.
Then it hit me…
SNOW
marché de Noel
The snow is falling, department stores windows decorated and the fairy lights are up, Christmas is almost here! Trading the famous Christmas markets in Lille for a weekend trip to Luxembourg with the Bulgarians meant Anneliese and I were still dying for a dose of Northern Hemisphere Christmas markets.
LUCKILY, the Paris Mayor decided to set some up on the Champs-Elysées, so on Sunday afternoon...
le match
I had been excited for weeks in the lead up to the Australia vs France rugby match to be played at Stade de France. Anneliese and I bought tickets as soon as they become available from Fnac and finally the day had come! After our dismal effort in the soccer, finally a chance has come for le pays des kangarous to prove themselves!
We started off our evening going to Café Oz, our favourite pub,...
November 2010
11 posts
babysitting in burgundy
For the second weekend in a row I was dragged away from my adopted hometown, this time without a choice…though it wasn’t all sad news. I was needed by the family I work for to help take care of Paul and some of their friends’ children down in Burgundy, where the mother, Corinne’s, family owns a house and a wine estate. Corinne, herself, has just begun a year long wine...
kusmi tea
I spoilt myself yesterday. I purchased some fancy French tea.
Well, to be honest, it is actually Russian tea originally, but moved its headquarters to France after the Russian revolution at the start of the 20th century. I was poking around the mindblowing (and incredibly chic) Galerie Lafayette on a wet winter’s afternoon and found myself on the petits cadeaux (little gifts) floor where...
du fer
So for the second time this year I was oblivious to the fact that elections were on, thankfully Mother informed me before it was too late so I popped down to the Australian Embassy, conveniently located right next door to the Eiffel Tower, much easier then trying to find the villa-like embassy on the edge of the desert in Jordan.
Nice one Australia, a photo I took earlier this year… when...
the aussies and bulgarians go to luxembourg
With a possible long weekend coming up Anneliese and I brainstormed possible spots for a cheap weekend away, we decided on Berlin as I personally was dying to get there, plus my cousin Timo recently moved up there for uni and offered me a free place to crash. Unfortunately we left booking tickets a bit late it seemed as the price for a ticekts skyrocketed within a week leaving us searching other...
noël est arrivé
Christmas windows on display, a sapin (Christmas tree) erected and presents dangling from the glass dome…Christmas has arrived at Galerie Lafayette, the exclusive French department store.
View from the roof over Parisian grand boulevards on a rainy Sunday afternoon
angelina's
On a rainy Sunday afternoon what better thing to do then head to one of Paris’ most beautiful belle époque tea salons and sip down one of France’s best, and most expensive, hot chocolates. The ‘africain’ is served in a large jug accompanied by a little bowl full of cream. When we arrived there was a queue filing out the door, however the short wait was absolutely worth...
footsie
During a recent Saturday night outing Anneliese and I were finally able to visit Footsie, a play on the FTSE, the London Stock Exchange, a brilliant bar whose prices change every 200 seconds according to the stock exchange. Timing is everything, for instance, one minute your rosé is 3.90 euros, the next it is 4.50. An economist’s dream bar!
October 2010
12 posts
strolling with squirrel
After a mere six weeks back at school little French kiddies are back on holidays and with my Paul off to Pommard in Burgundy with his mother I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands so decided that it was a perfect opportunity to duck down to Bordeaux to visit, Guillaume; my French host brother who stayed with us in Melbourne for a couple of weeks last year, or Squirrel, as we...
en grève
As I’m sure many of you have see, even on the Australian news, France has been plagued by what seems to be a never-ending grève (strike). Initially I didn’t pay much notice to this particular one as striking is somewhat of a national past-time here, however after a good week of unpredictable buses, burnt buildings and trains arriving every 6 minutes not 3 :O, I decided to...
Just some news a male friend of mine alerted me... →
Fête de la Raclette
With her family out, Emma decided to invite Anneliese and I over for a cheese and Disney movie filled samedi soir (Saturday night).
Raclette, for all of those who have sadly not had the sublime opportunity to try this magnificient experience, is a type of sliced cheese that comes from the French Alps that is melted using a very particular machine, that is, rather conveniently, in most French...
Monet's Maison
With Anneliese’s family visiting from Australia they invited me to join them one lovely Sunday to be whisked way to the lush, green Normandy on somewhat of a pilgrimage to Claude Monet’s treasured house and lilly-pad heavy garden. How could I refuse?
We caught the SNCF train from Paris’s Gare St Lazare (which ironically was painted numerous times by the man himself) to...
Barcelonian Birthday
With my birthday approaching and the end of summer closing in Anneliese and I decided it would be the perfect time to visit Barcelona. So we jumped onto the Easyjet website, packed our bags and off we went. We arrived on a wonderfully sunny Friday afternoon and, although missing our stop due to a misinformed Italian, taking two wrong trains and a few wrong streets,we made it to our hostel,...
September 2010
13 posts
chez le pharmacien
After having a bit of sore throat and head today I decided to head to the supermarket to try and pick up some sort of cold relief medication, however, much to my disappointment the only thing even slightly ressembling medical treatment were band-aids. Unfortunately I had forgotten that this was France, they take their health care extremely seriously. Cough lozengers cannot be merely...
no hunchback in sight
Last Sunday I decided to wander down to Notre Dame to catch their Sunday evening mass, a celebration of a century since the birth of Mother Theresa. We found some seats relatively close to the front, mimed our way through many of the hymns (I’m sure God will forgive our lack of linguistic know-how) shook hands and wished eachother ‘la paix du Christ’, sat in awe as we absorbed...
florence of Arabia
I rose extremely early on the day of my departure, catching the rickety train to Gatwick airport (costing me a rather dear 11 pounds) where I was about to take the long, extemely indirect flight to Amman, Jordan to visit my aunt who is currently working there at the moment as a missionary. I was flying Air Baltic, apparently the largest aircarrier in North, with a short stop over in Riga,...
no shortage of shortbread
After just over three weeks in London I jumped on a bus up to Edinburgh. A couple of weeks before hand I came across really cheap bus tickets (about 14 pounds each way- almost the same price to catch the tube to the airport!) with Megabus. I wasn’t aware at the time that it was to be a nine hour bus ride, ah well, it was rather pleasant just sitting there, watching the English countryside...
looking for Mr Darcy (and the East Midland chavs)
During my first weekend in England I decided to pop up north to visit my fellow au pair friend Bianca at her family home near Chesterfield. Anneliese was also on this side of the Channel (or La Manche, the sleeve, as they say in French, as it is not the English’s) so together we took the two hour train voyage up north when the accents are closer to Scottish than the London English accent.
...